Month: December 2018

Silly Joke Friday

Silly Joke #1

A little girl is sitting on her grandpa’s lap and studying the wrinkles on his old face. She gets up the nerve to rub her fingers over the wrinkles. Then she touches her own face and looks more puzzled. Finally the little girl asks, “Grandpa, did God make you?” “He sure did honey, a long time ago,” replies her grandpa.  “Well, did God make me?” asks the little girl. “Yes, He did, and that wasn’t too long ago,” answers her grandpa. “Boy,” says the little girl, “He’s sure doing a lot better job these days isn’t He?”

Silly Joke #2

Upon getting to work one morning, seventy-five-year old Marvin is reminded by his secretary that it’s his wife’s birthday today. At lunch, Marvin goes to the local mall and tries to find a gift for her. Unfortunately, he realizes that life has been good and she has everything she needs. Upon passing a lingerie store, Marvin realizes that his wife has never bought any lingerie in her life. He gets the idea to buy his wife something sexy to make her feel good and young. Marvin goes into the store and tells the clerk to wrap up the most expensive, sheerest negligee she has. Marvin takes the gift and excitedly runs home to his wife. Upon finding her in the kitchen he tells her to take the gift upstairs and unwrap it. He’ll wait in the kitchen. His wife thanks him and goes up to the bedroom. Once the package is opened she realizes that this is something she has never had before. She also sees that it is so sheer it leaves nothing to the imagination. She thinks for a moment and then decides that she’ll really surprise Marvin and go downstairs without any clothes on at all. So she leaves the negligee on the bed and starts down the stairs stark naked. She calls out, ‘Marvin, come out to the hallway and look.’ Marvin walks out to the staircase, looks up at his wife, and exclaims, ‘All that money and they didn’t even iron it!’

Silly Joke #3

A father passing by his son’s bedroom was astonished to see the bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an green envelope propped up prominently on the center of the bed. It was addressed, “Dad”.  With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter with trembling hands:

Dear Dad, it is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with mom and you. I’ve been finding real passion with Mariel and she is so nice-even with all her piercing, tattoos, and her tight Motorcycle clothes. But it’s not only the passion dad, she’s pregnant and Mariel said that we will be very happy. Even though you don’t care for her as she is so much older than I, she already owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. She wants to have many more children with me and that’s now one of my dreams too. Mariel taught me that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone and we’ll be growing it for us and trading it with her friends for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want. In the meantime, we’ll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Mariel can get better; she sure deserves it!! Don’t worry Dad, I’m 15 years old now and I know how to take care of myself. Someday I’m sure we’ll be back to visit so you can get to know your grandchildren.

Your son, Tom

PS: Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at the neighbor’s house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than my report card that’s in my desk center drawer. I love you! Call when it is safe for me to come home.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Thought For The Day

Quote #1

“When my 13-year-old son said I think I need some help after playing video games for nearly 12 hours straight on the console I bought him, I look back and realized it was like I went out and bought him his first Jack Daniels.” (Unknown)

Quote #2

“This generation is so dead. You ask a kid, ‘What are you doing this Saturday?’ and they’ll be playing video games or watching cable, instead of building model cars or airplanes or doing something creative. Kids today never say, ‘Man, I’m really into remote-controlled steamboats.'” (Jack White)

Quote #3

“Our community system is completely broken down, and you need to build that back up again and make people feel that they can make a change in life and not just sit around playing video games or on their iPhones – that they can get out there and make a difference.” (Holly Branson)

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

A Recovering Addict’s Reflection On Jimmy Kimmel’s Fortnight Challenge…

With it being the day after Christmas, I’m guessing there will be a ton of people out there who will be spending it returning gifts they didn’t want or playing with gifts they did. One gift I can most definitely say probably won’t be returned by anyone today is the video game called Fortnight. That became overly apparent with Jimmy Kimmel’s Fortnight challenge from a few weeks ago.

In this challenge, he dared parents to film themselves abruptly turning off the TV while their kids were in the middle of playing the hugely popular game. The result was a whole heck of a lot of anger, violence, outrage, and even total despair. I was actually not surprised at all by any of these reactions after watching them for myself on those YouTube videos that got posted. The sad reality is that the majority of those wild reactions are indicative of a growing addiction, one that is totally becoming more and more prevalent these days.

Thankfully I don’t have a video game addiction and haven’t for some time. I currently don’t even have a video game system in my home. While I do own a Nintendo 64 and an even older Super Nintendo, they, and all the games I own for them, have been in a storage unit for the past six years. The fact is I don’t want them or any other video game console in my house. Why? Because I used to be one of those who was addicted to playing video games.

I used to sit glued to my television eons ago trying to master games on my Atari. I’d spend entire days sitting in front of the TV playing it until my parents told me I had to turn it off. And I wasn’t happy one bit whenever they did. When the first Nintendo system came out, my best friend at the time got it as a gift and we used to spend many-a-days together playing games like Contra, Zelda, Legendary Wings, as well as a number of others.

Nothing else mattered while we had those first Nintendo controllers in hand. Sometimes we were so glued to the television, that six to eight hours would easily go by, with the only breaks being moments we took to scarf down food or go to the bathroom. I can still vividly recall my friend and I during those marathon game-playing days screaming at the television, throwing controllers, and even getting angry at each other, all while ignoring the rest of the world, many beautiful days outside, and anything else really. Life became all about solving those games and nothing else.

Video game addiction was one of the first addictions I probably ever fell prey to. I never looked at it as an addiction at the time though. I just looked at it as something I enjoyed doing by myself or with my best friend back then. But the signs are so clear to me now looking back at my old behaviors. There was the constant obsession when I wasn’t playing, thinking about how I could get past certain levels. Then there was all that sweating and anxiety I constantly had when actually playing a game. And I mustn’t forget all that rage and temper tantrums I’d throw whenever a parent took my game playing privileges away.

Now, video games are becoming more and more realistic, which in turn has brought an exceptionally large amount of people into playing them. Take Fortnight for example. There are presently over 125 million people playing this game and at any given time, there has been over 8 million playing concurrently. Maybe this is why I don’t see many kids outside much anymore playing old-school games like hide-and-go-seek or kick the can or throwing a football around or even playing a pick-up game of baseball or wiffle ball?

While sad but true, kids, and even adults, are instead becoming more and more addicted to video games and because of it, a domino effect is occurring of downward mood swings, unhealthy binge eating and consumption of caffeinated beverages. I’d even go so far as to say that much of the upswing of violent crimes may actually stem from people who have previously spent far too many hours engaging in violent video games.

Nevertheless, when I saw a number of kids literally attack their parents, throwing punches at them and dropping f-bombs after their televisions were turned off in the middle of playing Fortnight, I realized how serious this problem has already become, even though Kimmel didn’t necessarily address that in his show specifically.

People are withdrawing more and more into the video game world, losing sight of reality and those around them, losing valuable social skills in the process, including any desire to interact with others, except those alongside them in the digital realm. Video game addiction is real and rapidly becoming a very serious problem, especially here in the United States.

Hopefully, parents will start drastically reducing their kids video game-playing time, as maybe then it will lead to them finding much healthier ways to spend their time, like having actual social interaction with others. As for those adults who also spend countless hours playing video games like Fortnight, like any addiction, the desire to change it will only come when the pain of continuing to do so becomes great enough…

I’m thankful I don’t spend any of my life anymore glued to a video game trying to solve it, as my life never grew any better spending immeasurable hours doing so. While I may still play a game of Ms. Pac Man or Galaga from time to time whenever I see one of those old machines somewhere when I’m out and about, game playing is simply not something that’s part of me anymore. And frankly, I’d rather spend my time making a difference in this world, rather than watching my life pass on by in any type of Fortnight realm…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson